A person has been arrested after allegedly breaking into the most expensive home ever sold in Auckland. 

The former Hotchin mansion on Paritai Dr sold for $38.5 million in 2013, a price tag that made it the highest-priced home sold in New Zealand until earlier this year when a 15ha-plus estate in Queenstown sold for more than $40m. 

But last night police were called to the house. 

The seven-bedroom mansion was partly built by Mark Hotchin, a director of Hanover Finance. Photo / Greg Bowker 

At 4.30am today, police received reports of a break-in at a residential property, a police spokesman said. 

“Police have arrested one person,” he said 

The seven-bedroom mansion was partly built by Mark Hotchin, a director of Hanover Finance, a company that lent to property developers but ultimately collapsed. 

The home was then bought by a New Zealand meat exporter, who moved to the country from China. 

The home, built over three sections overlooking the Waitemata Harbour, was said at the time of the sale to feature an indoor pool and parking spaces for 12 cars and was reported to have cost $43m to build. 

It comes after property website OneRoof reported in September that New Zealand’s house price record had been broken. 

OneRoof confirmed the sale of the trophy home with the agent who brokered the deal, but confidentiality clauses and privacy concerns prevent OneRoof from revealing the property’s address, it said at the time. 

The home on Paritai Dr set a record sale price of $38.5 million in 2013. Photo / Brett Phibbs 

Queenstown agent Hamish Walker, of Walker and Co Realty, declined to identify the buyer or seller involved in the deal, telling OneRoof: “I prefer to keep these sales under the radar, which is why people use my company.” 

OneRoof understands the sale does not settle for some time, and that part of the land can potentially be subdivided. 

The $38.5m former sale record for the Paritai Dr home had stood for 10 years, with only one other home – the Coatesville mansion owned by the Zuru Toys billionaires – coming close with a sale price of $32.5m in 2016.